Harbor View announces closure

Har­bor View, a seni­or cit­izens apart­ment build­ing on the 9500 block of State Road, will close with­in the next few months.

Early this month, the more than 70 eld­erly per­sons who live in the six-story build­ing were giv­en 30-days no­tice the build­ing will close, said Bar­bara Sor­rentino, the chief op­er­at­ing of­ficer of De­Paul Health, Har­bor View’s own­er-op­er­at­or.

However, she said in a Ju­ly 12 phone in­ter­view, the no­tice merely is a leg­al ob­lig­a­tion. The mor­al ob­lig­a­tion is to get the build­ing’s res­id­ents settled in new homes, she said.

“We won’t close the doors un­til each res­id­ent has moved,” she said. That, she hopes, will be by Septem­ber.

De­Paul Health has an­oth­er ad­ja­cent fa­cil­ity, the nurs­ing home Rivers Edge, and also owns oth­ers, Sor­rentino said. The com­pany is not in any fin­an­cial dif­fi­culty, she said, adding the de­cision to close Har­bor View was based on the build­ing’scon­fig­ur­a­tionand the av­er­age age of the res­id­ents.

Har­bor View dates to 1985, she said, and it was built for res­id­ents who might move in while they are in their 70s. People are stay­ing in their homes longer now, Sor­rentino said. Some move in with fam­ily. Now, Har­bor View res­id­ents have an av­er­age age in the mid-80s, she said, and the build­ing is too large for that age group, she said.

“We can’t serve that pop­u­la­tion in that build­ing any longer,” she said. “The halls are long. It’s just not man­age­able.”

Cur­rently, 42 of the res­id­ents live in “per­son­al care,” which means they get as­sist­ance go­ing about their daily lives — med­ic­a­tion, diet man­age­ment and bathing. Some even get help get­ting dressed. A little more than 30 live in Har­bor View in­de­pend­ently, Sor­rentino said. They get meals, too, she said.

About half of the res­id­ents have made plans already, she said. Some are go­ing to oth­er De­Paul fa­cil­it­ies like Har­mony Place on the Roosevelt Boulevard, Sor­rentino said.

She said Har­bor View man­agers met with fam­il­ies and made re­com­mend­a­tions. On Ju­ly 10, the com­pany brought in op­er­at­ors of 15 oth­er seni­or cit­izen res­id­en­tial fa­cil­it­ies so they could all be there in one place to give Har­bor View res­id­ents in­form­a­tion about what they of­fer.

“They didn’t have to go search­ing,” she said of her res­id­ents. “They could ask their ques­tions all in one place.”

Sor­rentino said Har­bor View got oth­er res­id­ences to waive any en­trance fees. The homes that are tak­ing Har­bor View res­id­ents also are help­ing with mov­ing ex­penses, she said.

“We know this isn’t an easy thing,” Sor­ren­tio said.

De­Paul is go­ing to keep the build­ing, she said. No plans have been made for its use ex­cept that it will not be used for health care or as a seni­or cit­izen res­id­ence. ••